St. John Climacus says that “the thought of death is the most necessary of all works…he who has died to all things remembers death.” St. John isn’t being morbid here, but he is emphasizing a central truth of the Gospel and the Orthodox Faith: we who desire salvation remember death because by dying to self and living to God, with eternity before his eyes, we become fellow victors with Christ over death.
So likewise, St. Paul says: it is Christ who has raised us up from death together with Him by virtue of our death to self and new life in Him. There’s an irony at work here: those who live for themselves and apart from Christ and the koinonia (communion) of His Body, the Church, though they think they live, are actually already dying or even dead. Whereas those who die to self, die to this world’s grip on them, continuously strive to die to the passions that separate them from life in God, those live with eternity before their eyes, these abide in the life of Christ.
How easy it is to prefer the temporal offerings and attachments of this world, to turn inward, to focus only on ourselves! But, this temporal and selfish focus turns to pure poison for our eternal souls. Living in the temporal realm without care for our souls, our healing, our salvation, life without God, without accountability, without conviction, feels like freedom at first, but like a child who in an unfettered manner eats too much candy, it easily turns toxic to our souls.
This is one of the lessons Jesus is teaching us in today’s Gospel: The rich man lays up his treasure only for himself and believes that this wealth has somehow bought him the security he so confidently but mistakenly proclaims that he has. God says, “You fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?”
In the end, what do we have if we don’t have Christ? What has our self-focus, what has the world’s philosophy, or our having Christ on our terms, provided for us, for our souls. We can easily fall into the same trap as this man—whatever our means—if we put our trust in our own resources or prefer our own ideas of the life in Christ. Instead, we are called to use our resources for God’s glory and for the salvation of our souls.
There’s no substitute for our living, healing, and growing, than coming outside ourselves to love and serve God and our fellow man. Such focus is not an “extra” in our relationship with God, but at the core of the Christian life. We’re saved together, in koinonia, communion, or not at all.
St. Paul reminds us of this truth in today’s Epistle: Christ is our peace. All those other attachments of the world—from our resources and earthly treasure to our preference for our own way, our own ideas of the Orthodox Christian life, cannot and will not bring us peace because they will not bring us to Christ.
Instead of autonomy, individualism, self will, Christ offers us koinonia (communion) in His Body. He offers to graft us into His one body by virtue of our submission to His Truth, our growth in humility, our repentance, our dying to self, so that we can become more of what He is. As we submit to His life, His will, what He has revealed to us in the Church as the way of healing and salvation, we also grow in our communion with Him and with all those who are likewise in Christ, striving to submit themselves to live for Him—all our Orthodox brothers and sisters around the world.
In this way, Christ builds up the ekklesia, the community of the Church. We grow as the family of God, helping to supply the lack in another with the spiritual effervescence of the gifts that God has given us. This is how the Holy Spirit works in us and through us to build up the Body as a whole. Not only do we grow our mission, our church in this way, but we change our neighborhoods, our city, our culture to reflect Christ and His Kingdom more as well. We are, in turn, built up in our faith in doing so because as we grow in our communion with God the Holy Trinity, we also make it possible for others to come to and grow in Christ as well.
Christ Jesus is the Chief Cornerstone. The Church and all of us are built up in Him or not at all. The lesson of the rich man in today’s Gospel teaches us that we can never think that we’ve already ‘arrived’. Our growth and healing is unending; it progresses only when we are willing to put Christ and His Church first in our lives. If we are to inherit the Kingdom of God, we can put no other gods before Him.
If you fear entrusting yourself further to God, St. John Climacus says that the answer for us is to live for God with death before our eyes. In this way, we’ll continue to take seriously our need to know God now, that we may know Him for all eternity.
Dying to self, we continue to build up the Body as a whole. We invite Christ to grow us more and more into the men and women of God He has called us to be, into His likeness. As we learn to put our trust more in God for our spiritual and physical needs, our dependence on this transitory world, and its temporal hold on us, weakens. God fills us to overflowing with His joy and love to build in us treasure in heaven, giving us true and lasting fulfillment through contentment in Him, peace, and participation in His eternal Kingdom.
May Christ God give each one of us the joy and love that comes from focusing on the needs of others this holy fasting season. May Christ God bless our efforts to give of ourselves, our first fruits for the growth of His Body, the Church, and the advancement of the Kingdom in this temple, that “being joined together,” we may grow into a “holy temple in the Lord…a habitation of God in the Spirit.”
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Mission
November 18, 2012
